


i see you in the dawn

by Areiton



Series: Find Me In the World [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Cannon Divergent, Derek Hale is healthy, Healing, M/M, Mentioned Braeden/Derek Hale, POV Derek Hale, Pining, Post-Canon, Well adjusted Derek Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 11:39:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13387047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Areiton/pseuds/Areiton
Summary: Life is quiet.With wood under his hands, shaped into something good and solid and real, something he creates instead of destroyed, he heals.





	i see you in the dawn

Life is quiet. 

There was the few years after he left Beacon Hills for the last time, when he and Braeden were trying to figure out what the hell they were doing before they decided sex just complicated things. 

He wanted more than she could give and was too damn broken for the things she  _ could _ give. 

But she was steady and reminded him of Laura and he stayed with her, for a while. Hunted for money and sometimes because it was the right thing to do. Until he got tired of it, his hands being covered in blood and the scent of gunpowder and wolfsbane in his nose. 

Braeden smiled at him when he left and promised to call and he was mildly surprised when she actually did. 

He rented a little house in Maine, far enough in the woods that he was never bothered and started woodworking again, a skill he had picked up with his father and never quite shook the love of. It took three years to build the cabin on a nearby plot of property and he found two omegas in those years, formed an Alpha-less pack that felt more like family than he had any right to. 

He heals. With wood under his hands, shaped into something good and solid and real, something he creates instead of destroyed, he heals. 

Sometimes--not often, but occasionally--he thinks about them, the scattered pack led by Scott that he left behind. He heard about Scott’s death, felt it like a lost limb, a phantom ache that itched sometimes, when he least expected it. 

He thought of Stiles, more than he expected. Derek heard he got out, took his father and ran after something bad that Peter refused to talk about, and it settled a low ache in his chest, knowing that Stiles was away from Beacon Hills, away from the constant draw of hellfire and monsters. 

Life moved around him and he spoke of Laura, and realized that it didn’t hurt, not the same sharp burning that he felt those first few years and he wondered if Stiles ever got to the point where he could mention his mother and not ache with it.

He wondered if Stiles found someone to share that with. 

Derek watched his pack of omegas grow and fall in love and marry, endured the quiet stares and well-intentioned introductions, but it never felt  _ right.  _ It never lasted. 

Braeden smiled at him, when she visited every few years, like she knew the truth--that he loved a boy he left behind, that he loved him enough to let him go. 

Derek ran sometimes, not for his life, not to kill some monster in his woods, but simply because he was a wolf and it sang in his blood, and the wind rustling through his fur made him feel closer to the boy he would never have. 

Once, he went to Boston to discuss distribution of his furniture in a chain of small specialty stores, and he caught Stiles’ familiar scent on the streets, faded but layered deep on the streets and in bookstores and he smiled to himself as he followed that sweet familiar scent through a city he didn’t know until he stood in front of a small, cozy house, and heard the too-fast heartbeat that resonated in his dreams, sometimes. 

He stood there, listening, until the dawn began to break, and then he shifted and ran. 

He dreamt about it, sometimes, that stolen night and glimpses of Stiles’ stolen through open windows, and he would run through his familiar forest and sing to the moon until the sun rose and he went home, to the place where Stiles wasn’t, where he might never be. 

Somewhere, Stiles was safe and happy and rising to greet the sun and Derek, for the first time in his life, was content. 


End file.
